Political Briefs
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IF the House of Representatives has its way, the president and state governors will lose their immunity against criminal prosecution while still in office. It also wants the status quo of a maximum of two terms of four years in office for the president and governors as provided for in the 1999 constitution to be maintained. These are some of the recommendations contained the report of the House Committee on the Review of the 1999 constitution released on Thursday, July 4.
Giving highlights of the report submitted by the Committee, Emeka Ihedioha, deputy speaker of the House and chairman of the committee, said that there was recommendation for full autonomy for local government councils and the scrapping of the existing state/local government joint account in the constitution. In its place, it recommended the creation of a special account for local councils from where they could draw their funds directly from the federation account.
It also wants the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to conduct future elections into the local councils every four years. “The reforms proposed by the committee prescribed the mode of election of local government officials, their functions, tenure, qualifications for elections, and other related matters,” the report said. The committee also said the local councils should no longer depend on the state houses of assembly for running their affairs.
Other recommendations include the separation of the office of the minister of justice from that of the attorney general of the federation as well as provision of roles for traditional rulers in the national council of state and creation of council of chiefs at the state level. The committee said there should be no more creation of states for now. For the recommendations to find its way into the constitution, it would need the concurrence of the House and the Senate.
However, Ihedioha said the recommendations were based on the demands of Nigerians during the November 12, 2012 people’s public session held in the 360 federal constituencies.
Oshiomhole’s Grouse Over Road Project
GOVERNOR Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State wants the House of Representatives to look into the funding of a controversial road project at Five Junction in Benin, the state capital. The governor made the call in Benin, when members of the House Committee on Works led by Ora Ozomgbachi visited the state on Wednesday, July 3.
Both the federal and Edo State governments have been laying claim to funding the project. To buttress his claim, Oshiomhole presented the project design, contract award documents and evidence of payment to Reynolds Construction Company, the company handling the project, to committee members and urged the lawmakers to investigate the claims.
“This is an opportunity for me to clarify areas of disagreement, including the area called Five Junction, where we felt it was worthwhile to construct a roundabout and create a network drainage channel. If the Federal Ministry of Works is claiming the work, which it did not do and is claiming money for it, it would be a fraud. I brought these documents to settle the issue once and for all and if the ministry claimed it paid for the contract, then Edo State should have its money refunded,” he said.
Oshiomhole cited other federal projects executed by the state government and called for re-imbursement, even as he claimed that the design of federal road projects in the state, were done without taking cognisance of the terrain nor making provision for drainage channels.
Ozomgbachi, who said they were in the state to carry out their oversight function, noted that many projects failed in the country because of the negligence of various supervisory authorities.
Unqualified Teachers in Schools
EIGHTY per cent of school teachers in most northern states are not qualified for the job. The shocking disclosure was made by Aminu Sharehu, director-general of the National Teachers’ Institute, NTI, in Zaria, Kaduna State, July 3. Speaking at a national conference on Quality Assurance and Control in Teacher Education as a Tool for Achieving Millennium Development Goals, organised by the Federal College of Education, Zaria, Sharehu urged northern state governments to give priority to training teachers working in their various institutions. “You need to train and retrain teachers because the National Certificate in Education, NCE, is just a starting point. In the teaching profession; we do not have learned people, but learning people because we believe that there is no end to learning. So, it is only lawyers that are proudly calling themselves learned. As for what are really responsible for poor qualification of teachers in the north, I will keep that for another day. But there is need for increase in teachers’ salaries and continuous increase in their remuneration to make them better teachers,” Sharehu said.
However, Governor Muhktar Yero of Kaduna State, who also spoke on the occasion, said that only 50 percent of the teachers in his state were not qualified and not 80.
Yero, who was represented by Mohammed Usman, commissioner for Education, said: “The Federal Ministry of Education stipulates that the minimum teaching qualification in our schools should be NCE. But majority of teachers we have today in the system are not NCE holders. So how can they qualify to teach in the new curriculum? As a measure to improve education in the state, Governor Muhktar Yero has given an approval to recruit 1,800 teachers.”
The commissioner said the state would make sure that it recruits qualified teachers for the state.
“When I came on board as the Commissioner for Education in Kaduna State, I discovered that 50 percent of the teachers, particularly the primary school teachers are under qualified. There is no way they can do the job very well. I had to give them a time frame of five years within which to upgrade themselves and become NCE holders,” Usman said.
The commissioner noted that there were some teachers in the system, who had never attended any education programme in the past 20 years. Besides, he said that about 1,840 teachers within the system would be flushed out because of fake certificates.”
Towards Free, Fair Elections
THE federal government has approved the procurement of 17,000 voter card readers at N459million to check multiple voting in the 2015 general elections and subsequent ones. Labaran Maku, information minister, made the decision known to State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting, presided over by Goodluck Jonathan, on Wednesday, July 3. Maku said the council gave the approval based on the proposal submitted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. He said the first batch of 17,000 cards would arrive in the next six months, while two additional batches would be bought to cover the entire country.
“In its desire to ensure free, fair and credible elections, the INEC is to procure, customise and configure 17,000 smart card readers that will be deployed during elections for voters’ authentication,” Maku said, adding: “The smart card readers will be used to verify the rightful owner of the voter card presented for identification during elections.” According to the minister, Zinox Technologies Limited, an indigenous firm, will supply the equipment at the rate of N27,000 in the sum of N459 million with a completion period of six months.
House to the Rescue
THE House of Representatives has stepped in to resolve the face-off between Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State and Joseph Mbu, commissioner of police, in the state. Worried about the degenerating security situation in the state, the House, on Wednesday, July 3, mandated its committees on Police Affairs and Justice to liaise with the Police Affairs Commission, the inspector general of Police, IGP, and the Rivers State Government to work out ways of improving the working relationship between the state Police and the state government. They are to report back to the House within one week.
Peter Edeh, a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, from Ebonyi State, who raised the motion as a matter of urgent public importance, said the situation called for an urgent attention because a former militant had raised an alarm that there was a build-up of arms in the state. “This is not good for the state because both the governor and the police chief can guarantee their own safety but the safety of the masses is not guaranteed,” Edeh said.
The lawmaker also reeled out exchange of altercations between the governor and the police commissioner, whereby Amaechi dared the police chief to shoot him and Mbu on his part called the governor dictator. “Those statements have shown that the working relationship has completely broken down between the two,” he said.
The lawmaker also expressed concern that Mohammed Abubakar, inspector general of police, had so far refrained from addressing this matter or commenting on it publicly. “We need to intervene if we want Rivers State to be safe and the people sleep with their two eyes closed,” Edeh said.
Emeka Ihedioha, deputy speaker, who presided over the session, put the motion to voice vote and it was unanimously carried. Abubakar, however, said on Wednesday, July 3, that his office had not received a petition from the governor, asking for the redeployment of Mbu.
— Jul. 15, 2913 @ 01:00 GMT
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